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Now, the room was quiet. The kind of quiet that feels expensive. The walls were cream-colored, the sheets were high-thread-count cotton, and the view outside the window showed the glittering, indifferent skyline of San Francisco.

I lay perfectly still, afraid that moving would tear the stitches that held me together. Beside me, in a clear plastic bassinet, my children slept. They were tiny miracles, wrapped in hospital blankets, their chests rising and falling in a synchronized rhythm that mesmerized me.

I reached out a hand—my arm felt heavy, bruised from IV lines—and touched the plastic.

“We made it,” I whispered to them. “Daddy will be here soon.”

I checked the clock on the wall. It had been four hours since the delivery. Mark had been in Tokyo on business—or so he said. I had called him the moment my water broke. He hadn’t answered. I had texted. I had called his assistant, Chloe.

Silence.

I tried to suppress the rising panic. He’s on a plane, I told myself. He’s in a meeting. He loves us. He’s just busy being the CEO.

But the voice in the back of my head—the voice of the Chairman, the voice that could spot a flaw in a contract from a mile away—whispered a darker truth. He isn’t busy. He’s absent.

I looked at my reflection in the darkened window. I looked wrecked. My hair was matted with sweat. My face was pale and puffy from fluids. I was no longer the sleek, hidden power behind the throne. I was a mother, bleeding and exhausted.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the sound of footsteps. Waiting for the man I had built to come and hold the family we had made.

CHAPTER 2: THE ARRIVAL OF THE KING

07:00 AM.